


The Field Hospital

by Mary_West



Category: The Secret Garden - All Media Types, The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Amputation, Blood and Gore, Burns, Field Hospital, Gen, Graphic Descriptions of Injuries, Implied Colin/Dickon, M/M, Medical, Wartime, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:39:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28515816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mary_West/pseuds/Mary_West
Summary: Senior Nurse Mary Lennox is serving at a WWI Field Hospital, and is the steady rock that others look to. But she isn't that steady inside.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	The Field Hospital

**Author's Note:**

> This was my original piece for my Yuletide offering, but it was far too violent for my recipient, so I've saved it for after.

Mary Lennox smoothed down the front of her uniform and tried to look nonchalant.

It failed miserably.

 _A fully trained nurse is calm in every situation_. She could hear Matron's drone inside her head. _No emergency is worth running for. You are far more likely to trip over another nurse, or stab the patient with your scissors, or, worse still, disrupt the doctor. Your job is to provide assistance and care in a dignified manner. No running._ She was fairly certain that Matron hadn't had to learn the finer points of nursing in the middle of a warzone, with shells booming not five miles away and the bodies coming in barely able to hold onto that thin spark of life. She'd signed up to be a nurse well before this blessed War started, defied the disapproval of Mrs Medlock and cousin Colin, and qualified near the top of her class.

She never expected there to be a war.

Nor did she expect to be asked to go to France and work there.

But she knew only the best, the calmest, the most respected of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service were sent to the front lines. Her training had been extensive, and when she was in the operating room, splattered in blood and catching limbs as they were sawn off before they could become septic, she remained rational and responsible. Even the newest group of soldiers to arrive, choking and drowning in their own fluids as the gas destroyed their lungs, didn't seem to worry her. Every doctor in the hospital remarked on her ability to remain serene even in the face of great danger.

They had no idea what was happening inside her. Especially today.

The rough wooden door beside her opened and Nurse Carson rushed out, white-faced and gagging. She barely made it to the muddy trench at the side of the hut before she vomited profusely, her groans audible even over the distant thunder. Mary took a deep breath, and walked over to her, sniffing carefully and taking a handful of rags from her pocket.

Putting one arm around the young woman's shoulders, she carefully removed Carson's cap with the other, to prevent it falling into the foetid puddle in the ditch. She waited until Carson had finished vomiting, handed her the rags to wipe her face, then helped her to her feet and over to a rough bench.

"Wait there a moment."

Mary was back in a flash with a tin cup full of water.

"Here. Swill your mouth out first, spit it off beside you, then drink."

Nurse Carson's eyebrows went up, but she did as she was told. One disobeyed Senior Nurse Lennox at one's peril. Sipping the water carefully, she looked to be relaxing, if one ignored the tears rolling down her face.

Mary sat beside her, breathing deeply. The air smelt of woodsmoke and blood, of cordite and decay, and of mouldy hay and badly cooked pork. It was the last that gave Mary the clue.

"Burns?"

Carson nodded, and sipped.

"What happened?"

"Hut on the eastern trenches. Maps. Paraffin stove. Hit by a shell." She sipped a little more, her voice slowly losing its terrified tone. "Five men sheltering inside, and the stove tipped over as the door was blocked. Paraffin on cotton uniforms … it acts like a wick … oh god."

She put the tin cup down and dashed for the trench, the little water in her stomach coming straight back out again. This time Mary left her to her miseries, and wished she could lose herself in her thoughts, just for a while. To not think of how she felt two days before, when she found out her cousin had been assigned to the front lines just four scant miles from where she was working. She'd almost danced, hoping that she'd get to see him, talk to him, be with him.

She was never going to hope again.

Nurse Carson returned just as the wooden door re-opened. The doctor who came out had been twenty-three when he arrived at the hospital a scant four months ago – fair faced, slightly rotund and cheerful. Now, with his lined face and empty stare, one might assume him in his forties. His clothes hung off him like a scarecrow's robes and the colour of the coat could barely be made out under the grime and blood.

He looked at the two women there, disappeared back inside, then returned with two more cups which he carried gingerly. Handing one to Mary and keeping the third himself, he sat beside them and pulled out a small silver flask.

No words were necessary. Each woman held their water-filled cup out, watching the amber liquid splash in. All three sat silently as the tired winter sun slid down the sky like a petal down a wet wall, to fall into the grey horizon and be lost forever. Mary felt the whiskey settle in her stomach and bring with it a slight easing of the terror that threatened to consume her. Nurse Carson's gasping almost-sobs slowed to ragged breathing, and the doctor's eyes started to focus on the world around him.

"I would know your secret." The doctor's voice was a gentle Scots brogue, delivering the illusion of the scent of the highlands and fresh mountain winds with his words. "You've worked here a year now, seen the worst of it, but as always Nurse Lennox is as firm as a pine and as immovable. What is it that keeps you going in the sight of all of this?" Nurse Carson leaned over, the better to hear.

Mary unclenched her hands and once more smoothed down the front of her uniform. Matron wasn't here. Queen Alexandra wasn't here and had no idea what the conditions were like. She looked out over the ditch, past into the field where makeshift ambulances waited for the next order to dash to the front line and collect the wounded. Past the field, the mud, the broken tree trunks and toothless gaps where walls once stood, she could see something a long way away.

"Another drop of your water of life, Doctor, and I'll tell you."

He topped up her mug and she took a swig, the concentration of alcohol burning this time as it went down. Or maybe she had finally caught a breath of phosgene. It made no difference. Either way, she knew her time was limited. Whether a stray shell, or some infection from a gangrene-ridden patient whose germs had fallen onto her, or even a lungful of one of the ungodly gasses, she didn't know, but she was certain that she would not leave the battlefields of Flanders alive.

Finally she took a deep breath and a smile wreathed her face.

"There's a garden I go to. It has a high wall around it, and inside there is a tree and roses and bulbs. The birds come here to build their nests, because they know it's safe." She closed her eyes and saw the purple irises, the columbines and the daffodils, and the bright pansies in the damp corners. Inhaling, her nose may have detected the horrors around her, but her mind brought something else. "In the evening in summer, you can lie on the grass and the rose petals cover you like a silken blanket. There's a gardenia beside the old wooden door, and in spring it smells like joy. Once the winter is over, you can stand in the garden and hear the birds like a choir of angels."

Her face was transfigured as if a bright light shone on it, and the other two listened, spellbound, as she continued.

"The tree is dead. It died many years ago when it killed something special. Lilias had a swing, and it broke, and she died, but before she left she brought a child into the world. And when the child was older, the garden lifted him from sickness and gave him life. It took another child who knew only bitterness and loss and thought the whole world was hers and hers alone, and showed her how the joy of plants and flowers and birds is there for all. And it took a man whose heart was lost and broken, and showed him it was not dead. It brought him back to life too, and gave him a joy he never thought he would find again."

"Where is this garden?"

"Yorkshire. Misselthwaite. Where the thrush knocks on the stones, and the robin hops around the ivy. Where the purple gorse covers the moors and the wind at night wuthers like a crying child. It is the top of the hill, and all around is space and light." She didn't realise that tears were falling down her own face now. "At night, the moon shines so brightly you can read by it, and the only sound of thunder is the rush of the wild storm as it flies across the moon and washes it all clean."

Opening her eyes, she saw the last streaks of the sun on the clouds like the red lines running from an infected wound. "The sunsets there are a different colour. Purples and oranges and gold like the crocuses, and then the stars come out and shine on you. And in the morning, when the sun rises, it is over the moors and touches the windows and calls you to it."

"And that's how you stay calm?" Nurse Carson put her cap back on, running the pins through the side and into her hair.

"It is. When the screams won't stop echoing in my head, or the smell of chlorine-burnt lungs sticks in my nose, I take a minute to slip outside and think of the garden." She pulled the last scrap of rag from her pocket and wiped her eyes.

"And the people? The boy and the man and the girl?" The doctor made sure his flask was firmly screwed shut as he slipped it back in his pocket.

"When Lilias died, the garden was locked away. When the boy and the girl found it, it had saved all its powers for them, and brought them back to life. And the man. Uncle Archibald. It gave him life too. It brought back feeling and love and light. But he's gone now. He had ten more years, and saw his boy grow up, but then one day he fell asleep in the garden and never woke." She rubbed her eyes. "It's what he wanted. He never felt as if he was complete after Lilias died, and while rediscovering his son helped, there was always something missing."

"The boy?"

"Grew up. Decided to prove he was a man. Wanted to show his cousin that the years he spent in bed, certain he was crippled, were completely gone. Wanted to show the love of his life that his heart was as strong, his body was whole. He … he loved someone who was the spirit of the moors, and the two together were a joy to watch. But while Colin's body had grown and developed, his brain had not. He thought he was immortal."

"When?"

"This morning."

"Lieutenant Craven?"

"He hated his surname. Was teased for it. Got told he was _craven_ by name and nature. So he led his men over the top of the trench in the dawn light." Mary rubbed her hands down her skirt again, still trying to get the blood off them. They were clean but raw, abraded by the soap she'd used to wash them and then the constant rubbing. "Colin was brave, but he was foolhardy, and it has cost him dear. I have a lock of his hair, and his last letter to his love, and I will take them back to the garden if I can."

"You helped me operate on him, I remember." The doctor rubbed his temple. "You were here when he was brought in. You had your hands on him, trying to stem the haemorrhage, to stop his organs from … He didn't have a chance. There was too much damage."

"He was shot in five places, and the blood wouldn't stop. I couldn't stop it." She pressed her hands hard into her lap, the skin stinging as she did so.

"Because you are the girl from the garden." The doctor took her hands from her skirt and wrapped them in his. "Nurse Carson, would you bring the jar of Holloway's ointment from the store? And some fine bandages."

"I'm not injured." Mary's eyes were now full of terror. "I can't be. I need to keep them safe. His men. The others. I am not injured. There are no wounds on me."

"You are injured inside. I am going to send you home for a rest."

"Home?" For the first time, the fear and nervousness left her. "Do you mean that?"

"You have been here a year without a break. I think you deserve it. You need to breathe again, to see the grass and the tree, and the roses and the irises. You're dying inside, and I need you to be alive. So I shall arrange for your release for a month, and I'm sending you to Yorkshire."

"Home." She slumped against him, heedless of what anyone would think. "I will go to the garden."

Finally, her hands were stilled.


End file.
